Update: The buyer has apparently backed out of the purchase, claiming the bid was a "mistake". Here's what the seller had to say:

The unfortunate reality is the second I approached the winning buyer with payment options, they retracted their bid claiming it was a “mistake.” I’m not offering the item to other bidders in the auction to see if any of them are honorable individuals. It may take me a while but that’s about all I can do for now. It would be nice if eBay were more seller-friendly, rather than 100% buyer protection focused.

These aren't even the rarest of these kinds of cartridges, as there are 26 gold-coloured equivalents that were contest giveaways at the time. Nevertheless, these grey cartridges can easily fetch over $10,000, even when in condition as lousy as this example; it functions, but its label is long gone, with "Mario" written crudely in pen.

Its shoddy condition hasn't prevented an enthusiastic bidding war on its eBay listing, however, and it has now been sold for $99,902 after 328 bids. That easily surpasses — almost doubles — the amount eventually fetched for this Legend of Zelda prototype cartridge, for example.

Despite the absence of its label, which includes the limited edition number, it's clear that the stars and market forces aligned to take this item to extraordinary heights. The new owner can presumably take the seller's suggestion to "investigate a forensics lab's involvement" to determine the number, as they clearly have plenty of cash to throw around.

It's amazing what value rarity and nostalgia can command. Let us know your thoughts on this in the comments below.

Welsh ex-pat Tom is responsible for the day-to-day running of the site. He's the guy to thank for the generally brilliant nature of the content which massages your eyeballs on a daily basis. Also has an unhealthy obsession with all things Bowser.

@justlink Not many bank accounts that would allow a transaction that large to go through without a manual check. You still have to manually choose to pay with paypal anyway (You can choose not to but it is not a good idea).

that's not how Ebay works. When you use Ebay and win an auction, you have this pay now option which then you select your payment method. It is not tied with your bank account directly as often time people use credit cards, paypal balance, or a direct deposit from the bank account. There is probably other ways but the majority use Paypal and would still require you to log into paypal in order to do a transaction.

Oh sorry I didn't mean to place that bit for $99,902.00 it was a mistake! To place a bid you have to do a couple of clicks not just one and the guy has 776 stars so he is not new to ebay. I hate time wasters like that, he must be a bit deranged.

What a waste of money. I think it's messed up that the buyer backed out. Ebay has has become completely buyer based. Sellers really get the short end of the stick, that's exactly why I've stopped selling anything online years ago.

Oh dear! the person who put that bid in should honor it and pay. Even if I had the money I wouldn't not had bought that game, its £60,000 in British money I could pay a large chunk off the mortgage for that and buy a nice new car and still maybe have some cash left over for a good holiday But really who is really going to pay that money for that cart that is so ripped?.

@seronja So by your logic, nobody should ever buy a luxury item. All money spent on unnecessary items should go to the poor? Forget things like jewelry, movies, vacations and video games. Since you don't need them to survive, are you selfish for spending money on them instead of giving to the poor? Why don't you sell your game collection and give all the proceeds to those in need, then?

I hope the seller doesn't have his Ebay bill coming round anytime soon as he will need to cover the fees of around $9,500 until they decide to refund them to his account.Along with Paypal they are a truly evil company and I long for the day a competitor comes along and puts them out of business!

@A1234 I agree. I thought it was shady that the label was torn off anyway. I wouldn't think it wouldn't be super difficult to make a counterfeit cartridge given the ROM is freely available. But when he said something about not offering it to the next buyer, that makes me wonder even more.

@Platypus101 Haha more than likely yes but at least at the start they will have to be more seller friendly to establish themselves.I am speaking from experience, I have had thousands locked up in paypal for 6 months with no reason given and been talked to like I was the scum of the earth.

@OorWullie ouch! True, corporations, once established, do not tend to be people friendly. In this case it's even worse... Due to the fact that they are simply the arbiter. Their attitude, unwarranted I agree, there ought to be another option (other than Amazons Marketplace, which I rate at a whopping 5/10... They're sellers have such a mean streak). hope your paypal/eBay issues clear up!

@unrandomsam That yellow Zelda was Howard Philips copy and it legitimately left his hands into the wild long ago, it's not stolen. He even confirmed as much last year when a member of NintendoAge had it and him being a member there helped flesh the story out a bit.

As to this NWC it won't be paid. At NA I was bringing up the insanity pricing and a moderator there on the side flashed me a quote supposedly from the high bidder essentially saying cold day in hell to actually pay that price. I'm not surprised, stigma of it or not, those carts are worth like 10% of what that ended at.

Agreed, the buyers can really screw the seller, and they do take advantage of buyer protection. I've stopped selling on ebay due to people claiming the items I've sent are broken on multiple occasions.

One guy backed out when I told him I would pay for return shipping, he would have taken the offer if he wasn't trying to scam me.The other guy bought a DS lite that I couldn't fix; he got mad when he tried to fix it and couldn't, stating that I didn't list all the problems even though I had listed it as "AS IS" and had never seen it working.

Now I deal on craigslist and with other local collectors and make 3/4 the amount but I get great deals since I work with other collectors and I have a blast.

eBay used to be pretty good about helping sellers out in situations like this, but even if they still were, there's really only so much they can do. The thing is, nobody signs a contract when they "buy" things. Sure, they agree to a statement, but nothing legally binding. It would be like going to the game store and making the employee ring up a big pile of stuff, but when it came time to ring your card, you say never mind and walk out.

The best eBay could do, and should do, is ban the buyer from the site and refund the seller any fees associated with the auction.